Tools Featured in this Teardown

Introduction

This is the 21st century; reading lights are old school, right? Heck, light bulbs, in general, are old school. If my electronic device can't light itself, I don't want it! Join us as we shed some light on the newest eReader from the bright minds at Barnes & Noble.

Did this teardown leave you glowing? Follow @ifixit on Twitter for live updates on the latest products and teardowns.

This teardown is not a repair guide. To repair your Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, use our service manual.

I copied your comment (ABOVE) and am about to try and paste it into the Teardown Instructions as you suggested. I don't know if you are registered on Ifixit or not, but I think your comment and warning is significant enough that I, like you yourself indicated, don't want to let another do-it-yourselfer or techie fall into the trap you discovered. I hope you will continue to offer helpful comments on here: I'm myself trying to repair TWO Glowlights with faulty glows. Best regards. Larsjohn.

We appreciate you reading through the teardowns, but as noted at the very top of each one, these are for entertainment purposes, only, and should not be followed as repair instructions. Teardowns leave out small steps such as removing SD cards in order to keep them engaging and entertaining. Only use repair guides for repairing your own devices.

I fully appreciate the need for the "FOR ENTERTAINMENT ONLY" disclaimer, as a general possibly legally advisable if not mandatory principle. But I fail to appreciate the entertainment value of reading of someone's AVOIDABLE misfortune when trying to follow a teardown posted here, and only in hindsight realizing that a "small step" that has been left out (such as checking to see that he or she removes a micro-SD card first) results in permanent and perhaps irreversible damage to the item needing repair.

In closing, I must say that I remain CONVINCED that it will be negligent of the site to withold Divinar's comment from being posted in context in the teardown above. And that's all I'm saying.

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As our spudger comes out to disconnect the solitary battery connector, we wait for something along the lines of this to happen.

Unfortunately, this is all we get. No glowing aura; no chest full of gold; not even a speck of pixie dust. The only explanation is that the GlowLight must have some other form of mythical power behind it.

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We remove the motherboard and are amazed as a bright aura of GlowLight magic emits from the innards of the device (aura not pictured).

Though the device has proven very simple to take apart, we do note that all of the components are held on with a lot of adhesive. We have not had to use a heat gun yet, but we tread carefully as we remove the heavily adhered motherboard from the frame.

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Time to remove the frame from the display assembly. Any guesses as to how it is secured?

If you guessed boatloads of adhesive, you were correct!

With the help of a spudger, we carefully pry the frame from the display assembly, nervously holding our breath at every creeeeek emitted from the loosening frame.

The frame is made out of magnesium, as opposed to the aluminum plate found in the non-lit Simple Touch. We verified this magnesium claim the hard way, apparently not having learned our lesson from last time.

After removing the frame, we are finally ready to take out the display assembly. We start by, surprisingly, removing more adhesive holding the display cable in place.

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Fireflies and glowsticks are one thing, but GlowLight is a different technology. The chief claim of GlowLight is that it evenly distributes the light across the whole screen.

Although there has been speculation as to how it actually works, the GlowLight has nothing to do with the magnesium frame inside. The interesting technology uses the display assembly itself to achieve the evenly-lit screen.

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Light coming from the LEDs goes into the glass, which contains a diffraction grating—an optical component that has slits or grooves as part of its structure. Usually, a diffraction grating is a separate piece of an assembly, but B&N's engineers integrated it into the glass.

This diffraction grating bends and disperses the light throughout the screen. Barnes & Noble really did their homework on this one, because instead of a simple linear diffraction grating (think of a bunch of parallel slits), it appears that the diffraction grating varies throughout the glass to evenly disperse the light.

How do we know it's a diffraction grating?

Lasers. We took a laser and beamed it through the glass panel onto a wall. Unlike the light of the white LEDs found on the Nook, the green laser beam (which is all the same wavelength), was split into the diffraction pattern shown. If no diffraction grating was present in the screen, the laser beam would be projected as a singular dot on the wall.

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7 Comments

Question, while you had the glowlight apart, did you happen to see what material is on the underside of the glass that is causing the " tearing / ripping" issue that is all over the internet? I was wondering if there was some sort of poorly applied screen protector?... thank you...

Kermit45, I just bought a broken Nook Glowlight very cheap. It turns on, you can even turn on the light by holding the "N" button but the display is broken. I wanted to buy a new screen and repair it.

I tried the screen of my nook Simple Touch on it and it turns on and displays the boot sequence and lock screen but I can't unlock it so touch doesn't work.

I tried the screen still attached to its original aluminium frame so I guess somehow this frame interferes the infrared of the Nook Glowlight that has a different magnesium frame.

I tried the Simple Touch screen attached to the video connector but with the Glowlight mainboard still attached to the Glowlight screen and frame and I was able to touch the broken Glowlight screen to control what I was seeing in the Simple Touch screen so definitely the screen is compatible, only difference is the light. Reference of Glowlight panel is ED060SCE(LF) T1-0I. Reference of the Simple Touch Panel is simply ED060SCE(LF) T1.

I have seen ads online for the ED060SCE(LF) T1-0I panel but they don't include the light panel so it seems it is an addition of Barnes & Noble and not part of the original piece. I have also seen it for Kindle and Sony readers with light, but the light connectors are different. I still haven't found it with the light connector for the Nook Glowlight. :-(

What is the name of the male-female connectors that connect the nook battery to the mainboard. These connectors have broken and I was wondering that will finding a replacement be possible? Here is a picture of the connectors: http://imgur.com/a/VJhyL

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